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China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

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Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#31

Post by [deleted] »

liberte82 wrote: post #15
wesleyfsmith wrote: post #9

The most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.

It's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.

[deleted]

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#32

Post by maximente »

duxup wrote: post #26
pjc50 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can almost certainly unilaterally revoke all the visas. Why the US wants to blow up its own higher education system would be beyond me, though.

Is having someone as a student, and then they leave ... beneficial? I don't have a position on this, I'm just wondering.

likely only for tenured professors and possibly universities. professors hold immense power and likely benefit greatly from someone motivated to finish + move back and earn massive sums relative to rest of population; the university i'm guessing benefits to some extent financially/prestige of said research group/professor.

edit: losers are general public, whose taxes go to public universities who then train up a generation of students who won't contribute those benefits back to the country. private universities have different funding models of course, so not so clear there.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#33

Post by hakka-nyu-su »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22
liberte82 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.

No want wants to live in that kind of environment? In the US, Trump says mean things about certain types of immigrants. In China, you can be jailed with no due process for speaking out about human rights abuses. Also, better hope you're not in a religious minority. Don't say anything bad about the government, because they're watching you!

The hostile environment for ethnic Chinese people (especially academicians) in the US is about more than, and predates, Trump's tweets. https://supchina.com/sinophobia-tracker/

It includes visa restrictions and harassment (e.g., computer seizures, pressuring your job to fire you) from agencies like the FBI and NIH. It also impacts people who have no connection to China, like the Taiwanese Wen Ho Lee.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#34

Post by baron_harkonnen »

wesleyfsmith wrote: post #9

The most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.

I know plenty of really bright, talented and hardworking Chinese grad students who have a preference to stay in the US but the current visa situation is appalling. RFEs (request for evidence) which were once rare have become standard practice, making the wait to start a new job go up by months, with lots of stressful uncertainty as to whether or not you will be allowed to stay in the US.

There's lots of VC money in China right now and most talented Chinese tech people have offers waiting for them in China that are both very high level positions with very high compensations. So even if you want to stay in the US on the one hand you have people back home offering you insane opportunities and trying very hard to incentivize you to return, and you have the US government essentially trolling you to make a point about how unwanted you are (from their perspective).

The fact that the current US policy is effectively working hard to drive away very talented people who want to be here but have plenty of good offers elsewhere will do plenty of long term harm (for the US).

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#35

Post by jhedwards »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22
liberte82 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.

No want wants to live in that kind of environment? In the US, Trump says mean things about certain types of immigrants. In China, you can be jailed with no due process for speaking out about human rights abuses. Also, better hope you're not in a religious minority. Don't say anything bad about the government, because they're watching you!

When I was living in China this didn't bother most of the Han Chinese I met. Most of them were so concerned about lifting their families out of poverty and providing for their future that if you said to them "but you can't speak out about human rights abuses" they'd just look at you like "why the hell would I want to do that".

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#37

Post by bilbo0s »

liberte82 wrote: post #15
wesleyfsmith wrote: post #9

The most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.

It's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.

In all honesty it's even kind of going beyond that right now. You could end up being the poor innocent chinese patsy that they arrest for God knows what in some tit-for-tat power display. No one wants to be the dummy sitting in a foreign prison for 10 or 15 years while China and the US argue over their dick sizes.

As an American I'd think very carefully about working in China right now for the same reason. No matter where you are in the world, you're always breaking some law, and they can pick you up and throw the book at you to make a PR point whenever they please. Same as for a Chinese person in the US.

Feel bad, because the guys travelling to work or study really do just want to meet each other and have interesting idea exchanges, maybe make some friends, etc.

But then the political type people get involved, and it just gets a bit too complicated and you start weighing the potential risks differently.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#38

Post by jonathankoren »

Causality1 wrote: post #13

We're quite far from the scale tipping in that direction, but it makes me curious about whether the US government has the legal authority to say "educating foreigners is no longer in the national interest, therefore it is no longer a valid reason to remain in the United States" and decimate the foreign student population essentially overnight.

The government can do whatever it wants when it comes to setting immigration laws. It's an enumerated power.

F-1 (student) visas are already nonimmigration visas. After you graduate, you have a few months of "optional practical training" (OPT) and then you're expected to go home. Hopefully, you can get an H-1 (another nonimmigration visa) to stay for at most six years, which is about how long it takes to get a Green Card (permanent residency)[+].

I had heard that the reason why F-1s are nonimmigration is because back in the 1960s it was seen as foreign aid with Cold War benefits. Encourage people from third world counties to come to the United States, see how great it is, and then go back and build up their own countries. A decade or two out, you now have a country friendly to US interests.

Maybe that made sense in the 1960s, but it seems like it stopped making sense sometime in the 1980s, and certainly by the 90s.

We make it too hard to immigrate to the US. If I was king for the day, I'd make F-1 visas immigration visas, or at least be able to fast track F-1s into an immigration visa. The glacial pace, and the difficulty to immigrate is a reason why people go back. I know people that ended up giving up on getting Green Card, so moved to Toronto, and already has gotten Canadian permanent residency.

[+] If you want to fast track your Green Card, marry a US citizen. You get it in a couple of months.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#40

Post by vkou »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22
liberte82 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to blame Chinese students for not wanting to stay when they're being met with outright hostile rhetoric from the political establishment. Economic considerations completely aside, no one wants to live and work in that kind of environment.

No want wants to live in that kind of environment? In the US, Trump says mean things about certain types of immigrants. In China, you can be jailed with no due process for speaking out about human rights abuses. Also, better hope you're not in a religious minority. Don't say anything bad about the government, because they're watching you!

> In the US, Trump says mean things about certain types of immigrants.

If you think the extent of America's hostility against certain types of immigrants is limited to Dump Truck saying mean things on Twitter, I'm not sure what to tell you. [1]

DT doesn't exist in a vaccum. There's a powerful, xenophobic political movement that has made him president, and there's a mainstream political party that wins more elections than it loses, that panders to that constituency.

[1] I also find it incredibly ironic that you are dimissing anti-immigrant sentiment as 'it's just words' - as in - words aren't a big deal, while in the same breath, pointing out that words are in fact a big deal, because there are many that you can't say in China. [2]

[2] Are 'just words' a big deal or not? You can't have it both ways.

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